Examples

We may well say: I would desire to be young; but we do not say: I desire to be young; seeing that this is not possible; and this motion is called a wishing, or as the Scholastics term it a velleity, which is nothing else but a commencement of willing, not followed out, because the will, by reason of impossibility or extreme difficulty, stops her motion, and ends it in this simple affection of a wish.

However, I will permit myself -- and more importantly, will beg your indulgence for -- analepses and occasional analogies where my own admittedly subjective views and readings seem to demand them...or at least wish for them in a spirit of whimsical velleity.

Who could have imagined then, in Crumpsall, that the ancient Jewish hope, “Next year in Jerusalem”—for so long more a velleity than a hope, the feeblest and most unanticipated of anticipations—would be realized in their lifetime and that they would be able to stand here, under the watchful eye of Israeli soldiers, but otherwise unimpeded, together?

"Eliot dissects degrees of human velleity, finding the conscious action hidden within the impulse hidden within the desire hidden within the will tucked away deep inside the decision that we have obfuscated even from ourselves".

"'They may have coveted your silver—I am sure they did—but that was a mere passing velleity compared with their yearning for Mr Hadley's double-handed saws, adzes, jack-screws and many other bright steel objects I cannot name.'"--Patrick O'Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation, 34

"I found this word on a quiet day in November, in my parent's 1906 Webster's International Dictionary, an immense tome that enjoys its own stand underneath a creepy oil portrait of a somber, walrus-mustached man -- who may or may not be a relative -- in a rather dark corner of the living room of my parents' 200 year old Cape Cod in the woods of Spring Hill Farm in Edgecomb, Maine.

The word is said to mean: "The lowest degree of desire; imperfect or incomplete volition."

"It is with great velleity that I get up, put on my socks and shoes, and head to work."

"Honey, you know I love you but to be perfectly honest, I'm feeling velleitous* about having relations tonight."